


A Sex-Witch at Castle Stein

by thwax



Category: The Stein and Candle Detective Agency
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:22:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thwax/pseuds/thwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weatherby Stein, Mort Candle's young, private detective partner has been missing for five years, kidnapped by a dame calling herself, The Sorceress, who has had dealings with the kid's family before. Stein and Candle have always gone in for the hinky cases, the ones no-one else will take, but this witch proved too much for even Weatherby's occult expertise and Mort's brute force. Back in the Black Forest, the place where Mort first met Weatherby as a child at his parent's castle, Mort, ex-marine, hard-nosed bastard, must drop his shields to fight for Weatherby's freedom and his soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sex-Witch at Castle Stein

The name's Mort Candle, private dick, and standing in the rain outside a Black Forest hunting lodge that looked like it had seen better days was not my idea of a good time, but it was something I'd gotten used to since teaming up with Weatherby Stein, teen expert in all things weird. We'd made a good team, the kid and me, taking on the cases no other shamus would touch, the jobs that paid well 'cause they needed our special touch: zombies, witches, vampires - we'd seen them all in the year we were partners. But that had been five years ago. Five years since I'd last seen the kid, but his pale face behind those hawkish, round glasses, almost serene in the way he'd looked back at me, was etched on my memory. I'd let him down. I was the strong arm of our partnership, fists and guns, that's my job and I hadn't protected the kid when he'd needed me most.

"I know how to stop her," he'd told me of the queen bitch we'd been chasing, a dame known as, The Sorceress, with powers that had left a morgue full of good looking young joes behind her. "All you have to do is get me close."

I'd got him close alright, too close and the witch had grabbed him. My friend in the hands of that banshee and I hadn't been able to do a damn thing about it. I ground my teeth as I thought about it over and over, but a hand on my arm reminded me of where we were. Selena Stein looked up at me from inside the hood of her coat that was for more than just keeping the water off. Her short dark hair and bright eyes reminded me of Weatherby, gave me shivers sometimes how much the kid and his older sister resembled each other. That was the reason for the disguise, no-one could know another Stein was back in Germany. I glanced up at the dark castle way back through the trees behind us. Castle Stein, home to the Anglo-German Stein family for generations, disused since the war had left it broken and deserted and the two Stein kids orphans, but now there were lights shining from its windows into the damp night. One of those lights belonged to Weatherby Stein: five years of searching and chasing were almost over. Selena would have her brother back and there was a business waiting for him with me if he still wanted it.

I was a realist, five years was a long time, the kid - not such a kid anymore, nearly twenty one - might not want to hang around with an ex-marine beating up supernatural bag guys, but he deserved to be able to make that choice. I gave the forest I hadn't seen since my days with the Screaming Eagles one last look. I'd learnt the hard way that you never could tell what was looking back at you out of the dark and my natural paranoia was in full force as we came the closest we'd been to Weatherby in five years. None of the grey shadows moved, so I turned back to Selena and nodded at the far side of the inn.

"Let's meet your Herr Schulberg round the back," I said. It never paid to go in the front, not when the big bad's spies were gonna be everywhere.

Selena nodded, her lips set tight and I understood the chick's nerves. We'd all had to get on with our lives after Weatherby disappeared, me hunting down the big catches to pay for the search, her finishing her schooling in anthropology and then joining me. We were experts in the macabre and mysterious and we'd been all over the world looking for her brother. When our sources had told us that there was life back in Castle Stein, we hadn't needed Weatherby's genius to catch on and a couple of phone calls later, we were meeting an old family servant right under the Sorceress' glare.

"I don't like this one bit," a sharp whisper hissed in my ear and Henry Wallace came up beside me as he slid a 45 into its holster under his arm. 

Nearly seventeen, Henry Wallace Baum, son of gambler, Sly Baum, had come to me the day after his sixteenth birthday and offered me his services in finding Weatherby. Both owlish bookworms, he had told me Weatherby was his only friend and like a brother to him, and that he would do anything to get him back. The kid had done a lot of learning as he'd trailed his dad round the casinos of the world, and, although he had never shown Weatherby's inbred instinct for the strange, he knew his stuff and could hit an ace with a bullet at a hundred feet. 

"I agree," said the final member of our, if I was honest, desperate group of searchers. Evelyn Dearborn grimaced as she looked up at The Boar Inn, but then led the way round the back. I think Weatherby's kidnap had hit Evelyn hardest. She'd lost her dad, Doc Darby Dearborn, to malaria he'd caught on one of his archaeological trips, only a couple of months before the kid had gone missing, and she and Weatherby had been getting closer since she'd hooked up with us on a permanent basis. They'd been two sweet kids falling in love, even a life-sour old hack like me had seen that. Then she'd lost Weatherby as well and the chick had shut down for weeks. When she'd come out the other side, well, let's just say, I wasn't going to get in her way and I pitied the Sorceress when Evelyn Dearborn laid her hands on her.

Pulling the brim of my fedora down over my long features, I tucked my chin into my raincoat and followed Evelyn. We walked into the gloom at the backside of the building, but the back door opened, letting out orange light over our boots before we were within five feet of the door. We all stopped and my hand went to the colt under my coat. Henry Wallace mirrored me and I was sure we could blast our way out if we had to. Selena, however, walked past Evelyn and held out both her hands to the withered old face that appeared at the door.

"Heinrich," she breathed quietly, her sound the happiest I had heard it since the whole lousy thing had started.

"Fraulein Selena," the old man gushed back and pulled the girl into a hug.

The rest of us glanced at each other before Henry Wallace and I eased off the hardware, mostly - trust was a difficult thing for us all. However, I had to let go of the gun when Selena beckoned me forward into the warm kitchen and, a smile on her face, introduced, "Heinrich, this is Mort Candle, a very good friend of mine."

"I have heard of you, Herr Candle," Heinrich greeted me with a slap to my arms. "You will free Herr Weatherby," He pronounced it Vetterbee, "yes?"

"You betcha, Mr Schulberg," I replied firmly.

"Please, call me Heinrich," the old man offered, stepping back and putting his hand over his heart.

"Then it's Mort to you, Heinrich," I agreed and saluted the brim of my hat.

"Gut, gut," he nodded and then waved at Evelyn and Henry Wallace still standing cautiously out in the rain. "Please, come in before the things in the forest see you."

That got them moving and I raised an eyebrow at our host. He took the hint and explained, "Ach, since that she-devil arrived in the castle, we have had shadows in our woods once more. It is as bad as when the Nazis ruled over us."

"But you are sure Weatherby is with her?" Selena checked, gripping Heinrich's arm tightly.

The old man's face was grave then, but he nodded and patted her hand.

"I am sorry to tell you, but yes, Fraulein," he revealed. "I saw the young master with my own eyes."

"How did he seem?" Evelyn asked in the hard, flat way she had developed when hiding her feelings, but her eyes were flashing.

"Weary," Heinrich sighed. "She arrived with a dozen vehicles. Herr Weatherby was seated in the back of a car with her when they drove through the village to the castle. He leant against the window, which is why I saw his face, but his eyes were closed and his skin was pale."

That sounded right. We'd been close a couple of times and snatched glimpses of the kid: in Paris through a train window as it pulled out of the station; even closer in Prague, I'd had my fist at the car window. Weatherby hadn't even raised his head that second time, drugged, or worse, held by magic.

"Oh god," Selena sobbed the emotion that the rest of us kept bottled up and Henry Wallace moved quickly to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders: it wasn't only Weatherby he thought of as a sibling.

"We're here now, we'll get him back this time," Henry Wallace, our only optimist left, told Selena quietly as she dampened his shoulder.

I sat on my hope, too old and too wise to this game of tag to be so confident. Truth be told, I was tired, running on grit and anger at the Sorceress. I knew this had to be it, else it might all fall apart, but, just like when I was sergeant to my unit in the big one, I couldn't let that fear show. The kids, for that's what they all were, none of them more than twenty five, needed me to be strong. I met Heinrich's gaze and, with a nod, he indicated to the other side of the large kitchen.

"Sit down, take the weight off," I told the others, and waved them over to a table and chairs near the wall.

Evelyn looked for a moment like she might challenge me, but I fixed her with the authority that had got me through some tough spots during the fighting and, stiffly, she sat down. Selena and Henry Wallace followed suit and then I walked with Heinrich out of earshot. Heinrich leant in to me, stretching up towards my tall frame and whispered, "You understand the evil of this woman?"

I knew and I nodded grimly.

"She has the young master in her diabolical power," Heinrich carried on. "The stories of what happens in the castle now are worse than the horror of the Nazis. Fraulein Selena, is she prepared?"

I nodded again. 

"We have no secrets," I told him the truth of it. We had promised early on in the chase that, whatever any of us discovered, we would share with the others, no matter how sickening. We all knew what that witch had done to Weatherby, we'd seen the leftovers from her rituals in New York, the ones that had bound the kid to her as a sex slave at the hour of his sixteenth birthday. And we'd heard the stories each time we'd gotten close since: orgies, debauched magic and power that could threaten anyone the Sorceress set her sights on. We'd had no end of information about the twisted bitch's aftermath, but nothing had got us to her before she'd moved on, not until now.

"I fear for what she has done to Herr Weatherby. When I worked at the castle, he was always such a polite boy, so gentle." Heinrich looked like he might squeeze out a tear or two right then and I didn't have time for it.

"Yeah, well, the dame will pay and Weatherby will be just fine," I broke my own first rule of not making promises I don't know I can keep, but a chick crying was bad enough. "Your message said you can get us in."

Heinrich nodded, the waterworks headed off, and we walked back over to the others as he told us, "There is to be a party tomorrow night. I must provide the food. I am to take it to the castle tonight at seven in my van."

I checked my watch: two hours.

"Right," I looked at Henry Wallace and the kid uncurled his tall, lanky frame from the chair, "if we're to be ready in the back of that truck, let's get the weapons sorted."

"My vehicle is on the other side of the inn," Heinrich waved.

"I'll bring the jeep round beside it," Henry Wallace replied and then headed back out into what was turning into a storm.

~*~

Seven o'clock on the dot, thanks to kraut efficiency, Heinrich rolled over the drawbridge of Castle Stein with four extra joints of meat in the back of his van. I can't say I'm a fan of German sausage, but I got up close and personal with a dozen of 'em when the flap at the back of the van went up and two large mammoths climbed in. Heinrich had packed his cargo so no-one could actually reach the back, but we all hunkered down as machine guns waved over our heads. A few seconds and then the guards jumped back down: if they'd been my men, they'd have been on report for such a slack performance, but, as it was, I was grateful for not having to shoot our way into the castle. Heinrich drove on and pretty quickly came to a stop. He pulled the van canopy back and whispered, "We are at the kitchen door. Quickly before her staff come to collect the food."

"I'll lead," Selena surprised me as she stood first and headed to the exit. 

I saw her pause for just a second as she looked up at the high wall I could see out the end of the truck and I saw the pain coming back to her one-time home caused her. Still, we all had a job to do, and she jumped out of the back of the van, disappearing down the side quickly. Didn't take the rest of us long to follow her and she led us into a sweaty, warm corridor full of the sounds of cooking. Several archways let on to the hallway, light, steam and smells of roasting meat coming through them and Selena waved us hastily away from them into shadows at the other end of the corridor. Heinrich followed us in and, as we faded into the darkness, he called, "Herr Kuch, Ich habe die Essen fur Sie."

"Ja, ja," a voice boomed down the corridor and a man almost as wide as the archway through which he came, waddled over to Heinrich wiping his hands on a filthy apron.

I didn't give him a second look as Selena took us through a heavy wooden door right onto a spiral staircase. Heinrich had been pretty helpful about what rumour said was going on in the castle and rumour said that Weatherby spent most of his time downstairs in the dungeons next to his father's old labs. Selena had gone white when the dungeons were mentioned and she had admitted it was the one place her father had forbade her to go when she was a girl. He had told her the dangerous power of the Steins in the form of their magical circle was down there. That didn't bode well for Weatherby and I thought I had prepared myself for pretty much anything when I walked past Selena and took the lead down the steps. Both my colts in my hands and my eyes searching every shadow, I hunched down since the staircase had not been made for giants like me and, knowing Henry Wallace would bring up the rear, headed into the gloom. 

Felt like the staircase went down forever, no doors off, nothing, until finally it opened out into a hallway perpendicular to it. The hall was not much wider, but plenty higher than the stair well and I straightened up, the kink in my back threatening to be permanent as I waited for the other three to join me.

"My father's workshop is that way," Selena pointed left, but then frowned and glanced right, "I think."

"Okay, sister," I decided in a whisper, "you and Henry Wallace go right, me and Evelyn go left. You find anything, you come get us and vice versa. No heroics. Stay quiet and low, Heinrich said this place was crawling with the Sorceress' cronies."

We were a team, no arguing, Selena and Henry Wallace headed off right and I watched them go for a moment.

"You know the workshop is left," Evelyn murmured as she stood beside me.

I glanced at her and we understood each other.

"I don't want them seeing what we have to," I made clear what we were both thinking and Evelyn nodded.

I didn't like taking this chick into the evil I knew was up ahead either, but she'd done the research for us that had told us what was going on. There was no giving the innocence of the teenager back to her now and I was willing to use all the tools in our arsenal to get Weatherby back.

"Come on," I said and, steeling myself, stalked towards the depravity of the Sorceress' domain.

We reached a corner and I stuck my head round it, scanning the way ahead. I ducked back under cover almost instantly, because the very dame I wanted to tear limb from limb was standing not ten feet from me, leaning leisurely against a door frame, draped in a full-length silk robe, long golden hair flowing down her back. It was very hard for me not to just lift up my guns and start blazing, but I knew this dame, I knew that easy smile hid power the like of which Weatherby and I had never gone up against before. His father, Dr Wolfgang Stein had gone up against her in his younger days, made a dent in her armour, but even he, the most famous occultist of his generation, had only been able to cripple her for a few short years. No, this game had to be played out slowly and quietly.

"Sleep, now, Weatherby, do not fret, I shall need you again later," tones as smooth as the robe the witch was wearing made me risk another glance and I watched, gritting my teeth, as the amazon closed the door to the room that undoubtedly held my friend.

It wasn't until the witch turned to walk across the hallway that the way her robe fell seemed odd. Then, I put my arm up rapidly to make sure Evelyn, who was leaning against my back, did not get a look, because a long, straight length of carved dark wood, or stone was sticking up and out from between the folds of silk.

"The Bes Phallus," Evelyn whispered coolly, revealing I had been unsuccessful in my aim as we both ducked back into hiding.

I frowned at her and she frowned back.

"Egyptian god of music, dance and sexual pleasure," she explained, used to me being an ignoramus. "The phallus was discovered in Lower Egypt at a dig in 1793 and was quickly acquired by an occult collector, Harmon Fecundo. It was said to have magical properties when used in ritual and it makes sense of some of the things we've been hearing."

Evelyn stopped talking then, but I knew from the look on her face there was more. I held the chick with a stare and finally she cracked.

"It is said the phallus is a powerful wand, but its use is also said to be addictive and drug-like. I can't be sure, dammit," Evelyn stamped her foot and growled quietly to herself, "I bet there were once a hundred books upstairs in the Stein Library that could have told me more."

"Can't be sure of what," I prompted, I was also used to Evelyn's swotty meanderings.

"I can't be sure," she continued and bit her lip before she finished, "but she may have addicted Weatherby to her rituals."

The way the girl avoided specifics about the rituals would have been endearing had the cold hard truth not been so damn obvious.

"The kid may be addicted to sex?" I cut through the crap.

Evelyn nodded. I huffed.

"Well, let's get him the hell outta here so we can wean him off," I took the hand we'd been dealt and checked the hallway again.

The Sorceress had gone, so I led the way up to the door I had seen her close. It was large, wooden and had a small, barred window in it. I raised my gun to blow the lock off, expecting to have to make a quick getaway, but Evelyn put her hand on mine, lowering the gun and then she reached out to the heavy metal loop that made up the door handle. One easy turn and the door swung in. The fact that the kid was not locked in made me sick to my stomach with the possible reasons, but what lay in front of me as the door opened put all that in the shade. The room was not that large, once upon a time, a cell, but now it was hung with the same luxurious silks the Sorceress was wearing. Cushions in rich reds and oranges filled the floor, piling one on top of the other in a deep carpet of opulence.

I quickly zeroed in my goal, though. Weatherby was sprawled face down over the cushions, head turned to one side, eyes closed, body sweaty and completely naked. I'd seen only one or two rare glimpses of him since our chase had started and I couldn't quite believe it as I strode over to him, dropped to my knees and grabbed him by the shoulders. I'd lost a gawky teenage boy, but the Weatherby I lifted into my arms was a slender, muscled young man. He rolled over into my hold without resistance, dark head flopping against my coat, eyes only slowly opening, but those were the same blue eyes that had glared at me disapprovingly every time I'd been 'uncouth' in their presence.

"Hey kiddo," I whispered, cradling him gently and I think it was my voice that brought the frown to his face, because his eyes were unfocused. "It's me, Mort," I carried on.

The frown got deeper and the kid's lips moved silently, saying my name back at me. Life on the streets of New York and then what I'd seen serving Uncle Sam have left me a hard son-of-a-bitch, but I'll admit, with the kid in my arms, the relief of it got to me and I huffed a laugh as one hand came up and took loose hold of my coat sleeve.

"I gotcha, kiddo," I breathed heavily, sitting Weatherby up and burying my own emotions.

Evelyn grabbed something from a hook on the wall, something I found out was a robe when she threw it round Weatherby's shoulders. She knelt with me then, looking into the kid's face, but he continued to frown, fighting through the fog in his eyes.

"He's been used, recently," Evelyn concluded with a cool disdain not aimed at the kid.

"He's high," I agreed as, between us, we began getting the robe onto Weatherby properly.

It wasn't until we stood him up that he resisted and then he muttered a woozy, "No."

Still, he wasn't much of a challenge, despite being six foot now, if I judged right, and I had him, arm over my shoulder, draped next to me in a few seconds. Evelyn returned to the door and checked our exit. When she waved, I hauled the kid forward. I could take all his weight, no problem, but when he lurched to the side, he took me by surprise and we slammed into the door frame.

"Can't," he managed, clinging to the stone as I almost dropped him.

"Let me do the walking, kiddo," I ordered, readjusting my hold on him.

Weatherby shook his head and hung on to the door surround as I tried to drag him through, a growl in the back of his throat sounding like denial. Evelyn grabbed him too then and he couldn't resist us both. Still, he wailed as she unhooked his fingers from the stone and I shoved my hand rapidly over his mouth.

"Don't worry kid, whatever she's done to you, we'll sort it," I promised him as he shuddered under my grip.

"Oh, I don't think so, Mr Candle," the Sorceress' confident drool made my teeth grit and, when I looked up at the bitch, she was smiling.

She was standing in the centre of the big open space that stood opposite the door, robe split unashamedly to reveal all the dame's assets. The Bes Phallus was gone, but as she stalked towards us, she raised a wand in her right hand.

"Weatherby wants to stay with me, don't you darling?" she goaded and I actually felt the kid shift towards her.

I held onto him firm as I could and he whined, shivering and then panting as something passed from mistress to slave.

"Hold on, kiddo," I ordered, but it was hang onto Weatherby or reach for my guns, and the kid came first.

I was therefore staring down the business end of a wand in quick time.

"Release him," the Sorceress ordered and her words echoed round the cavernous room.

"Not likely, sister," I spat back and would have dived out of the way of any attack, but just as I tensed to take the fall, a shot cracked the air and I saw a slug slam into the Sorceress' shoulder.

Blood splattered across the room and she staggered backwards, the wand falling from her now useless right arm, but the dame did not go down and I knew she wouldn't. I'd emptied two clips of ammo into her when she'd taken Weatherby and the bitch had still been standing. 

"Run, Mort," Henry Wallace yelled, appearing from behind one of the circle of pillars that held up the roof of the place and firing again.

No-one can say I don't take hints and, as Selena appeared, blasting the hell out of a pistol as well, Evelyn grabbing one side and me on the other, we hauled Weatherby back the way we had come. Still, the kid wasn't gonna make it easy for us, he snarled and struggled, hitting out and sending Evelyn flying towards the wall. I shoved him towards the other side of the hallway as he tried to wriggle out of my hold and it was my turn to snarl. Whatever hold the queen bitch had on him, it was strong stuff and I made the tough choice. Pushing Weatherby up against the wall, I knew we couldn't out run the nasties if one of our own was fighting us, so I raised my fist.

"Sorry, kiddo," I muttered and then swung at him.

Fist hit jaw, head hit wall and Weatherby crumpled into my hold. I ducked and lifted him over my shoulder as Evelyn righted herself and joined me again.

"He has a few braincells to spare," I shrugged at the frown I was given, but there was no more time for talking as Selena and Henry Wallace came dashing after us.

"Twenty shots and she's still on her feet," Henry Wallace warned as we ran for the exit.

I was impressed with the kid as he stopped by the door and fired back past us as we all headed up the stairs. I was more concerned about the dame screaming down the corridor at us, though, and I charged up the stairs behind Evelyn and Selena. A full grown man is no light weight and I wheezed my way to the door we had come through, stumbling out and only just staying upright as I hit the other wall. My passenger groaned as I nearly dropped him and Selena ducked under my arm, checking her brother's face.

"What did you do to him?!" she hissed at me, looking like she might just hit me back.

"Weatherby is heavily spellbound," Evelyn came to my rescue, but there was no time for more chit chat, since Henry Wallace came dashing past us followed by a curse of epic proportions.

"Time to make tracks," I rounded up the troops and we ran for the exit.

Heinrich had the engine running outside and we dived into the back of the truck, Weatherby landed in a crumpled pile as I scrabbled into our escape vehicle. No alarm sounded as our driver gunned it towards the castle gates and the two heavies who'd let us in just dived out of the way. I lifted the tarp and checked the view behind us: the Sorceress was standing in the middle of the yard, hands on hips, watching us, a grim smile on her face. I had a nasty suspicion the unlocked door should have been a warning to us all and I didn't share in the whoops and hugs as we left the castle behind.

~*~

Heinrich drove us into the forest away from the village to a cabin sitting on its own in a small valley next to a lake. The place was peaceful when I jumped out of the back and reached to lift Weatherby, who was still out of it, into my arms, but I scanned what I could see of the area from the cabin lights anyway, old habits dying hard.

"You will be safe here," Heinrich assured us as he leant out of the window of his cab. "I shall return tomorrow with supplies."

"Thank you, Heinrich," Selena spoke for all of us as she reached up and patted the old man's arm.

"Anything for you and Herr Weatherby, Fraulein Selena," he replied and then drove off, leaving us to make our own way into the house.

The cabin was small, just three rooms: a kitchen-diner-living room, a bedroom and, off that, a bathroom. I put Weatherby into the bed. He shifted, but unconsciousness had become sleep, the kid looked exhausted, grey round the eyes and his skin was clammy. Selena took over then, close to shoving me out of the way before I backed off, and she gave me another stare as she tended to her brother's busted lip. Still, the relief in her eyes would have made me feel good if my paranoia hadn't been getting the better of me. Not wanting to rock the boat, I quit the bedroom, grabbed coffee in a tin cup that Evelyn had been brewing and headed out to the shores of the lake. 

It was a cold night, I pulled my hat down and my collar up, but at least there was no rain. I was not alone for long. I wasn't surprised. Evelyn planted her feet as she came to stand next to me, looking out at the blackness of the lake, nothing but the occasional rippled reflection of light to tell us there was even water there.

"So, any ideas on how we break the kid of his addiction?" I took the bull by the horns, since we both knew why we were out of earshot of the others.

"Some," Evelyn replied, a frown on her pretty face lit by the cabin, but she didn't explain, instead, the chick fixed me with a look and said, "You know the Sorceress didn't chase us?"

I nodded. "We have to get the kid sorted quick and high tail it outta here."

"You don't plan on fighting her, making her pay?" Evelyn asked and I saw a little of the rage the chick was running on.

"Not here, not now." I had sat on my own revenge instinct, the soldier in me telling me we need to regroup first. "The bitch will suffer, but not till we get Weatherby well."

Evelyn grimaced, but nodded.

"Now, let's all get some shut eye, we're gonna need it tomorrow," I took charge and saw Evelyn sag.

~*~

I have slept in worse places than propped up against the wall of a cabin, my fedora over my face and my coat for a blanket, but that night, I slept lightly, with one eye and one ear open, so when raised voices hit me from the bedroom, it didn't take me long to get to my feet. Dawn light gave me enough to see by, and I was not alone as I headed to the door: Evelyn didn't look like she'd slept at all. 

"I must speak with Morton," I heard Weatherby's haughty tones demand - boy had I missed that aristo-disdain!

I opened the door maybe a little harder than I intended, but the rapid couple of steps back Weatherby took made me stop in the doorway. The kid's eyes were wide and he stared at me from the corner where he'd retreated. It didn't take a genius to work out why he'd learnt that move and I felt for the kid. Still, after a second, arms dropping deliberately to his sides, I saw the shields come up and I knew the hard look I got then. The kid had always acted tough on the outside, but I'd seen the soft inside enough times to hope there was some inside left after what he'd been through.

"Hey kiddo," I greeted, flashing a smile, and I walked into the room.

No response: I tried not to take that as a bad sign, but I didn't get through the rough edges of my life without being a noticer and the kid's hostility gave me the creeps. Weatherby then glanced at Selena, who was standing on the other side of the bed from him, worried as hell as far as I could tell.

"Selena, please leave us," Weatherby spoke like he was giving orders to any joe on the street: there was a chill in the air.

Selena looked to me then, clearly wanting back up to stay. Still, there was something the kid wanted to say and if his sister was in the way, she had to go.

"Coffee's all out, doll," I told her and tipped my head towards the door.

I was watching Selena, but I saw the kid bristle at my choice of words out of the corner of my eye - good, at least he was still in there. We'd been together long enough that Selena knew my signals and she took the hint.

"Three cups," she decided, looking round at all three of us and then she headed out, shutting the door behind her.

Of course, the kid's gaze then fell on Evelyn. The pair of them could have taken a staring contest to a draw. Two sets of protective shells split the room down the middle and I stepped between them.

"I wish to speak with you alone, Morton," Weatherby spoke flatly, but I could see something, probably embarrassment behind his eyes and I took that as positive.

"And I'm not going anywhere," Evelyn replied, arms folding in front of her.

"She knows it all, kiddo," I cut the girl some slack.

Weatherby had always been able to choose his fights and I saw that battle pass. Instead, he focused on me as I walked over to the window and part of me knew what was coming.

"I must return to the castle," the kid spoke deliberately, the tension of it all over his face.

I looked more closely at him then and I saw what the corner shadows had hidden, the kid was ashen, his brow sweaty, the signs of an addict needing a fix.

"Not happening," I replied bluntly.

Weatherby seemed ready for that, he didn't even raise an eyebrow.

"You don't understand," he began again.

I wasn't having any of it. "Oh, we understand alright, kiddo, and I've seen plenty begging for a fix on the streets of New York."

"This isn't about my addiction." The kid showed spirit as he stepped forward.

I laughed. He bristled at my attitude, glaring up into my face, but I've stared down rougher bastards than him. I saw the neat little battle plan tick over again and I have to say I was disappointed when he backed off.

"I know what I am, Morton," the kid began again, tight-lipped, uncomfortable if I was any judge, "and if you know too," he glanced at Evelyn, "you know I cannot survive 'cold turkey' as you would say."

That was news to me and it must have shown in my face.

"You don't know," Weatherby concluded and then glanced at Evelyn, "but you do."

The chick didn't reply, but she was biting her lip when I glanced at her: so maybe there were a few secrets.

"Morton, I will die if I do not return to the castle," Weatherby spelt it out for my average-joe brain.

"No you won't, I will do whatever is needed," Evelyn stepped forward then, past me and it was the first real emotion I'd heard from the chick for too long.

Weatherby backed away from her, right into the corner, a look of horror flashing across his face before he controlled himself again. It was enough to bring the girl to a halt a foot or so away.

"Thank you, Evelyn," Weatherby spoke evenly, but I could see how hard the kid was controlling himself now, "but you know that will not work."

He looked away then, down at the floor and his pale cheeks coloured. "I am bound to the Bes Phallus."

I'd tried not to think too hard about what that meant when I'd seen the witch wearing the evil thing, but I knew well enough. 

"You need a guy, I'm here for you too, kiddo," I offered before my brain had caught up with my motor mouth and then I had two shocked faces looking at me. Still, I wasn't gonna back out: it had taken me a whole heap of time to work out what the kid meant to me, but I'd do anything to make my failure right. "I grew up on the streets," I countered the disbelief in front of me, "Before I picked up a gun, I had my share of joes pay my way."

Weatherby settled first, disappearing back behind his shields. I had no clue what he was thinking then, but he looked me in the eye.

"Thank you, as well, Morton," the kid replied like I'd just offered to help him with his homework. "You are correct in your assumption that I have been subjugated anally. However, you misunderstand how I am bound. I am bound to the magic channelled through the phallus. Evelyn, you must know that."

I'd never heard the kid so cold, none of the angry teenager I had known coming through his clinical tone. I ground my teeth and swore vengeance a thousandfold on the witch who had done this to my friend.

"You know the Bes Phallus was used by Pharaoh Hatshepsut to bind her priests, to force their loyalty," Weatherby appealed directly to Evelyn and the girl backed off.

"We will find a replacement," she argued, but none too definitely.

"In a few hours?" the kid pushed.

"Whatever it takes," I barked as my temper got the better of me. "We'll steal that damn thing if we have to."

Weatherby stayed in his corner, a fixed stare his only reaction and I came off the boil under that look. Something shifted in him then, resignation replaced the chill. The kid spoke quietly.

"This is not what it seems. I must return to the castle for tonight, or Ishabel wins again."

"Ishabel, is it?" a little of my five-year fury rose again.

"I have planned this for five years," Weatherby snapped then, my own rage flashed back at me as he stalked up to me and poked his finger into my chest. "You think me an addicted idiot, but I know what I am doing. Take me back, or everything that has happened will be in vain."

"You sound like a desperate addict to me, kiddo," I snarled back defensively.

"I have done what I had to," the kid growled. "I knew the moment I heard her name that the only way to stop the Sorceress would be from within her embrace and so I let her take me."

I'm not often lost for words, but that news tied my tongue in a knot as the truth of my failure came out. The kid just stared at me as I processed that shock.

"You let her?" I muttered my disbelief.

"I'm sorry I could not tell you," Weatherby replied then and I saw genuine emotion in him, "but I could not risk revealing my plan to anyone, the Sorceress is too powerful. The history of the Steins and the Sorceress is not quite what I told you, not even Selena knows the truth. I have a very personal reason for wanting the Sorceress dead. She killed my grandfather."

I walked backwards, away from the kid and sat down heavily on the bed when my knees contacted with it. Evelyn's hand touched my shoulder and I could feel her trembling as all the pain from the last five years made us dumb. The kid took charge, dishevelled and pale, he stood tall.

"My father did not go up against the Sorceress when he was a young man. When he was a student in Vienna, he was seduced by her. He would have been another victim, his life-force drained by her had it not been for my grandfather, who travelled to Vienna and faced her. He gave his life for his son. Only then did my father turn on her and he managed to damage her enough that she would never forget the Stein name. I made sure she knew who I was and gambled that she would want to subjugate rather than kill me."

Weatherby took a deep breath then, steadying himself and I saw the fears of those thoughts as he closed his eyes for a moment.

"So why didn't you attack her immediately you were within her thrall?" Evelyn prompted sharply.

The kid opened his eyes again, hurt crossing his sharp features.

"I didn't know how," he replied simply.

"You walked into the clutches of a monster and you didn't know how to defeat her?" Evelyn scoffed.

Weatherby turned away and I saw the pain of that cross Evelyn's face. I grabbed her hand as she went to step up to the kid though, and shook my head when she glanced at me.

"I knew I would find out, if I could just get back to Castle Stein. I did not know how long it would take me to persuade her," he explained, shoulders hunched, staring at the wall.

"In God's name, why here?" a voice at the door surprised us all and we all turned to see Selena standing there.

None of us had any idea how long she'd been listening.

"Father's study," Weatherby replied.

"You've seen it?" Selena sounded shocked.

The kid nodded.

"Father used to hide me in there sometimes when the Nazis were being especially forthright," Weatherby replied to her.

I stood up and broke the brother-sister moment. I wanted to know what they were talking about.

"What is this place?" I asked them both.

"Did you notice that the dungeons don't make sense?" Selena answered and Weatherby sagged into the corner, head down, as she explained. "The corridors are so thin, but the open space is too far along to be taking up the gap between them."

"A hidden room," Evelyn got there the same time I did.

Selena nodded.

"Papa would not allow me down into his laboratory," she continued, "but we all knew the room he used alongside it as a study, it was a family secret."

"He kept all his private papers, notes, diaries there," Weatherby rallied and picked up the conversation. "I used to read them when he wasn't looking. That's how I knew about Vienna, it was in a diary, plus copious notes about the Sorceress. When my father returned from Vienna, he researched her deeply, knowing one day the Steins would have to face her again and defeat her this time."

"So you persuaded Ishabel to come here," Evelyn still did not sound convinced.

Weatherby smiled sadly.

"She thinks me a hopeless, dependent addict as well. When I spoke to her in my 'delirium' about the grief in the castle for me and I told her of the power circle as well, she decided it would be a good place to finalise my bond to her," he explained.

"Finalise?" I picked up on the kid's words.

Weatherby looked none too comfortable that his sister was now in the room, nor that Henry Wallace was in the doorway, but, hugging himself, he concentrated on me.

"At this moment, I am bound to the Bes Phallus," he told me and he may have ignored his sister's gasp, but I didn't. "Anyone who wields it would have my servitude. Ishabel wants me for herself and tonight at ten minutes to midnight, she will have her chance to bind me and all the power in the Stein Circle to her personal will."

"What's so damn special about tonight?" I asked.

"Tonight he will be twenty one," Selena replied, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. "The night in every male Stein's life when he is initiated into the family secrets."

In all the planning of the rescue, I'd lost track of the days and I watched guiltily as brother went to sister and wrapped her in his arms. Time was when he'd been too small to hold her, but the years were obvious in him as he looked up over Selena's shoulder and told me, "I had the freedom of the castle, I have learnt all I need to know from my father's papers. Tonight, with the power of the Steins in me and that knowledge, I shall destroy the Sorceress once and for all."

~*~

Weatherby comforted his sister with the same calm acceptance I'd seen the kid use all his life. I'd seen some shit, but the evil this one lonely kid had suffered made me madder than hell. I didn't know how I was gonna do it, but I was gonna rip the Sorceress apart with my bare hands if I had to. Still, I watched that stoic face, tongue-tied and he took me by surprise as he looked my way. He looked kinda sad at my anger, but it was all I'd had to keep me going and I was even mad at him for walking into the witch's trap.

Slowly, the kid lifted Selena's head from his shoulder and he smiled at her. 

"It will be alright," he promised and kissed her on the forehead. "May I have that coffee now, please?"

Selena gasped back a sob and nodded. Wiping her face, she turned and headed back towards the door where Henry Wallace took her round the shoulders.

"Would you mind leaving us for a moment, please, Evelyn?" Weatherby asked quietly and I was shocked when the chick nodded.

She glanced at me and patted my hand before she left and she shut the door behind her.

"Henry Wallace has grown into a fine young man," the kid breathed eventually, sat down on the bed and patted the space beside him.

I sat.

"He's a good kid," I agreed, still looking at the closed door. "Can shoot straight too."

Weatherby snorted a small laugh then and I finally looked at him.

"I have always been remiss on my target practice," he murmured, smile slipping. "I always had you for that."

"Then why didn't you tell me, kiddo?" I challenged as my anger caught up with me.

The kid didn't bat an eyelid, just looked me in the face as I snarled at him.

"I knew you would stop me," Weatherby told me simply.

I could have slapped him then. Too right I'd have stopped him, tied him down till he came to his senses.

"You don't always have to take on the weight of the world on your own, kiddo," I charged, but I wasn't angry at him, I was scared for the red round his eyes and the shake in his hand.

"Do not weep for me, Morton," Weatherby smiled at me then, like one of those damn saints in the church that had turned its back on me. "I have not been cruelly treated."

That I did not believe. I scoffed in a breath. "She wants revenge for what your dad did."

"And she has done it by seduction, not force," the kid told me, staring down at the blanket. "She does not use the Bes Phallus on all her subordinates, she has other power items she uses through her womanhood as well, but she knows how to entice very well." 

I huffed, not liking the twisted justification.

"Did you not enjoy the attention of the men you were with?" Weatherby asked me then.

I'd have denied it straight out, but the kid looked at me so needily, I paused. Liking guys was not something a man like me could admit to and it had been dames all the way since I'd taken up my guns. Still, I knew now why the kid had made sure we were alone and, slowly, I nodded. That seemed to settle him and he smiled again, sad, so sad.

"It might have been easier if Ishabel had been cruel," the confession came out, "but, once she had demonstrated to me the extent of my addiction, she has not been unkind. I have even been able to continue my studies, albeit with books chosen by her."

My rage boiled over again at such pathetic resignation and I grabbed Weatherby by the shoulders. I shook him and demanded, "What has that witch done to you kiddo, you were always such a fighter?"

He looked into my face then, passive, hurt and he whispered, "I am her wand. She casts magic through me. It is incredible."

I let the kid go in disgust, standing up and walking over to the window and glaring out. Still, I waited for Weatherby to go on, make me listen. Nothing. I turned back and I wasn't angry anymore. Weatherby was curled over himself, shaking and deathly silent.

"Evelyn!" I yelled and grabbed for the kid.

He yelped then, his first sound and I let go. He dived off the bed and curled up in the corner of the room, cowering as Evelyn dashed back in.

"Some kind of fit," I told her, feeling dumb and useless.

The chick knelt down close to him, but she didn't touch.

"Weatherby?" she called, but the kid did not respond, his face buried in his knees.

When she glanced back at me, I knew it was trouble. We had to get that magic stick.

~*~

I stood at the fireplace, looking into the flames and thinking over what Weatherby had told us. The kid had sounded so sure of himself, but then I'd seen the way he'd collapsed, helpless against the Sorceress' power. The kid hadn't come out of the corner and he'd begun babbling in a language not even Evelyn recognised. I believed Weatherby believed he could stop the she-devil that controlled him, but I wasn't so sure. One look into his misted eyes and I'd recognised the desperation of addiction: he'd have done anything for his next fix. They weren't the eyes of a rational man and there was no guarantee the kid wouldn't just roll over and give the bitch everything she wanted if we let his plan go on. Still, with him fading fast, the only other option was stealing the Bes Phallus and that was a tall order.

The sound of Heinrich's truck pulling up outside was a welcome relief to my dilemma. However, it proved to be more decisive than I'd figured, because, in another second, the door came slamming in and I was looking down the business end of a luger. Survival instinct had my hands halfway to my holsters before memory told me they were sitting on the counter and I could only glower at Ishabel as she smiled at me from behind the pistol. I could have taken her down, but four other heavies carrying machine guns stalked round the room as well and had Evelyn and Henry Wallace in their sights as well and then a fifth guy walked in, pistol to Heinrich's head.

"Hello again, Mr Candle," the witch gloated, the gun just a toy in her hand. "You didn't really think you could take Weatherby away from me, did you?"

"We had a damn good try, sister," I replied.

The Sorceress' smile deepened and she lowered the weapon, which made my survival instincts feel better. 

"Where is he?" she asked, not really a question, more a show of dominance, and, Weatherby's plan the only one we had left, I played along, nodding to the bedroom. 

The witch, dolled up in tight leather pants and a white shirt, stalked over to the door with a look of a cat with her mouse. The door flew in in front of her, impressive if I'd been that way inclined and I moved as I heard Selena scream. A machine gun barrel in my back stopped me going into the room, but I watched the she-devil carefully as she walked right past Selena, who was sprawled over the bed where the explosion had left her, and right over to Weatherby, who was still curled into his ball in the corner. He gasped and looked up, eyes adoring and needy as Ishabel leant over him, and she stroked his face.

"There, there, my pet," she soothed as he whimpered, "I am here now."

She closed the gap between them, her lips pressing against his, and Weatherby shuddered, moaning quietly into the kiss. Such dependency made my guts ache, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I held my tongue and just watched as the harpie drew back, leaving wisps of crimson magic behind her as she let the kid go. He slumped back into the corner, face blissed out like any good addict, and she left him there, a smile of triumph on her face.

"Bring them all, they can all join in the birthday party tonight," she announced to the room.

The thought of what kind of shindig this lady would be throwing made me worry for the other kids, but I was a big boy and I was just glad I'd be able to stick close to Weatherby. It was not a surprise when one of the goons tied my hands behind my back and I growled at the guy, which seemed to be what the Sorceress was expecting, since she watched avidly when the joe gave me a slap for my trouble. I don't often like fulfilling expectations, being predictable is a mug's game, but I played the part of the angry, defeated soldier all the way back to the castle.

~*~

Wearing a groove in the stone floor of a dungeon cell in Castle Stein was not my idea of a great day, but all I could do was watch through the barred hole in the door as the circle and its pillars opposite my prison were prepared for the 'party'. I hadn't noticed the loops in the pillars on my first visit, but when goons hung manacles through them, I noticed, and I could guess who'd be hanging from them come ritual time. Four sets on the pillars at the quarters of the circle. Didn't get to me, although I knew the kids would be watching as well. What had my attention was the statue that was dragged into the centre of the circle. It was some great beast, twice the size of a man, partially rearing, one leg raised, back arched in a way that made a hollow altar. The straps hanging either side of its neck told me the hollow would hold a person half lying, and I knew who it was gonna be. Didn't help my imagination when the whole thing was draped in translucent white fabric hung from the ceiling and obscuring everything but the head and neck. 

I hadn't seen Weatherby since we'd been separated and dumped in our cells. He'd been walked upstairs by two goons and the Sorceress had taken great pleasure in telling us all that he was to be prepared and would then be joining his party guests, but she had not elaborated, leaving me grinding my teeth and wanting to punch something. I was ready to swing at anything that opened my cell door, but, as luck would have it for me, I was at the other end of the ten foot room when the door unlocked and there was the barrel of a machine gun pointed at my chest by the time I was ready to fly. I still had a survival instinct, so I froze.

The big fella holding the gun waggled it at me and indicated out of the cell. Fists clenched and looking for the next opportunity to jump the creep, I stalked past him. Turned out there was no way, because the goon had a friend: seems the Sorceress was taking no chances, so I was marched up to, as I had guessed, my own personal pillar. One joe covered me, the other put my wrists in the manacles. They'd got my height right and I was at full stretch - none too comfortable, but I've had worse. The kids, though, I could see the fear in their faces as each of them was strung up as well. We each faced a corner of the altar in the middle of the circle, ringside seats, and I was glad of the drapery. This was not going to be good and I looked up at my bracelets, searching for any way out.

The goons walked off, leaving us all hanging there, staring at each other. I kept my lip buttoned, but Henry Wallace looked like he was ready to puke.

"Is everyone okay?" he asked quietly.

"Hang in there, kid," I replied, "we're all doing fine."

"What's going to happen?" 

Henry Wallace had handled zombies, immortal pharaohs and countless other nasties since we'd first met him at age eleven, but I could see the kid cracking as the Sorceress stole another childhood.

"We're gonna get outta here," I told him firmly.

"How very optimistic of you, Mr Candle." I cringed as Ishabel's silky tone dripped triumph, but I straightened my shoulders as the she-devil stalked into the light of the circle.

Her tall, slender body shimmered as she walked and, at first, I thought it was some kind of figure-hugging dress, but then I noticed the lines of gold running down her body went under a harness she was wearing and I realised the leather was all that she was wearing. The rest was body paint and she displayed herself proudly.

"Like what your see, Mr Candle?" she teased with a practice that made sure I wasn't interested: she was beautiful, but that kind of hard sex left me cold.

When I didn't respond, the bitch looked for another victim. Evelyn fell into her sights, but I admired the girl as she stared the woman down. The Sorceress slunk over to Evelyn, hips tipping just so, smile always seductive. Evelyn glared back, but I saw her flinch when one gold hand caressed her cheek.

"Under that mousy exterior, you are quite a beautiful girl, Evelyn," Ishabel murmured, turning the girl's face up to the light. "And Weatherby tells me you have an excellent mind. I have been considering breeding him for some time. You will make a perfect broodmare."

Evelyn spat at the witch and the hand that had been pawing her face came across it in a vicious slap.

We all yelled, me, Henry Wallace, Selena, but it was Selena's irate voice that drew the Sorceress' attention.

"You evil bitch, I will kill you!" Selena screamed.

Ishabel raised an eyebrow and crossed the room. Selena snarled incoherently and rattled her manacles as the Sorceress neared her, but the woman kept on going, body pushing up against Selena's and forcing her against the pillar. The dame grabbed Selena's short hair in one hand, tipping her head to the side, but with the other, she took firm hold of one of Selena's bosoms, squeezing. She leant in, running her tongue up the neck she had exposed and then whispered just loud enough so all of us could hear, "Oh, my dear, so potent. Why have the generations of your family ignored their women? I feel the power in you."

Selena gasped and Henry Wallace growled. The kid had gone red in the face.

"Leave her alone!" he demanded, pulling at his bonds.

I knew the bitch was going to have her fun with all of us in the end, so I stayed silent then, the kid needed this moment of defiance. Ishabel did not let Selena go immediately, she ran her hands where she wanted to first, but Henry Wallace kept yelling and, eventually, she glared at him. Selena forgotten, the she-devil stalked over to the kid and stopped a few feet in front of him. He was already terrified, I could see that in his eyes and, under her stare, Henry Wallace fell still and silent.

"Do you like what you see, child?" Ishabel said, showing herself off. 

The kid grimaced. Ishabel laughed.

"Oh, child, such arrogance," she seemed unperturbed. "I shall have you, boy. You will beg me to make love to you. You won't last long, but you'll die with a smile on your face."

The cracks were all over Henry Wallace's face. Now it was my turn.

"Hey, witch bitch, pick on someone who's more of a challenge," I goaded.

I felt her as soon as she spun on the spot and looked at me. This bitch was all magic. I hadn't felt her real attention in five years. Then, she'd run off with my friend. Now, she was gonna do worse, but I wasn't going to show her the knot that put in my belly. I knew I was in for it when she settled onto her heels and pouted at me. Give me a fire fight over an angry dame any day. Still, there was nothing to do but take it and I steeled myself as she walked over to me, eyes running me up and down.

"Really, Morton, do you mind if I call you Morton?" she began like she was greeting me at a dinner party.

"You call me what you like, sister, won't change the fact you're going down tonight." I didn't know how, I could only pray some part of Weatherby's plan would work and give me a chance to act, but I meant every word.

She pouted again, sidling all the way up to me.

"I'll call you Morton," she ignored my threat, leaning against my chest, her assets rubbing through my shirt, "because that is what Weatherby calls you."

She ran her hand down my side and over my hip and I caught my breath before her fingers closed round my cock and balls. She squeezed, just enough to make me wheeze and she smiled until I coughed.

"I will have so much fun with you, Morton," she promised and I knew it was a promise, "because, you see, I know your secret. I saw it the moment I took Weatherby away from you. I know jealousy when I see it."

The bitch really could hit below the belt. I tried not to react, but she loosened the hold on my dick and something much more potent shot into my body. The world whited out for a second and when it came back, I was hanging from the manacles, panting and hard as a rock under her hand.

"Weatherby is mine, Morton, you can't have him," she taunted and I saw red.

I pushed myself away from the pillar, shoving her off me, and I yelled my anger, no words, just rage from the bottom of my belly. Ishabel stepped away gracefully, smiling and, under her victory gaze, I sagged. She had won this round.

We all hung there then, as the queen witch stalked round her domain, adjusting drapery like she was checking a table layout. The show was for us, we were waiting the appointed hour, the anniversary of Weatherby's birth, I knew that and I tried not to watch, but she'd had me the moment she'd laid claim to Weatherby. I was still hard as a rock the way she wanted me, her magic thick in the air, but it was nothing to the moment she came to a halt at the tail end of her statue, facing the other entrance into the dungeon room from the one we'd taken, a large pair of double doors. The magic rose, making me ache as she lifted her arms and the door opened. 

Instantly, the sound of revelry filled the large space and people, lots of mostly naked people, came piling into the room. The first few carried wine goblets, food, or each other, staggering and as high on the bitch's magic as they could get. They wandered round the edge of the circle, outside the pillars that marked it, slinking into shadow as they kissed and groped any flesh they could get their hands on. They made me feel sick, but the stone in my stomach only really lurched when a gaggle of them came in, a naked body held high over their heads like a trophy. Weatherby was not moving, his head lying back at an odd angle, but his eyes were open. They bore him aloft, painted like Ishabel, the sacrifice at their feast.

"Welcome, my friends," the Sorceress greeted grandly as they came to a halt in front of her. "Tonight, the power of Bes shall be ours."

The rolling shout that went round the room made the magic of the place lurch and I shuddered, whole body throbbing. Whatever the bitch had done to me, it had me bad. I ground my teeth and sucked it up though, because Ishabel stepped aside and the mob bore Weatherby forward to the statue waiting for him. I lost sight of the kid for a few moments as they carried him between the drapes, but when they laid him down, head resting on the neck of the beast, I strained for glimpses of his face between their bodies as they lifted his arms and tied his wrists above his head. Weatherby's stare was glassy, looking straight up, but, I realised for the first time that his lips were moving fast and silently. I'm no lip reader, but I could guess he was mumbling the same incomprehensible stuff we'd heard in the cabin.

The mob moved off, slithering out of the light into the shadows outside the circle, joining the orgy I was glad I could not see. Only one girl remained, small, slender, and her face adoring of the witch who controlled her, controlled them all if I guessed right. The girl was holding the Bes Phallus in both her hands and as Ishabel stepped into the space at the end of the altar, the handmaiden walked up to her and attached the thing to the harness. Ishabel's head went back, she held her hands up to the roof and my cock bulged against my pants as the magic tightened its grip.

Weatherby reacted as well, letting out a moan, and his eyes came down from heaven, looking down his body right at where Ishabel was standing. I couldn't read his heavy-lidded expression: overload maybe, need, whatever it was under his skin, it didn't give me any hope that he had any plan left in that sex-crazed mind of his.

"Weatherby!" I yelled, wanting a reaction, any reaction, but the kid kept on gazing at his mistress and it wasn't until she turned leisurely to look at me, that his attention also followed.

"Your friend wants you, Weatherby," Ishabel murmured in those seductive, dangerous tones and the kid's eyes closed, a frown forming on his brow for just a moment.

He moaned again, head arching back, all sex, and the bitch had been right, magic or no magic, I reacted: he was the hottest thing I had ever seen, that part was the magic, or at least I told myself that, but the way my belly tied into knots, that was all me.

"Bitch!" I snarled, trying to keep a handle on the sex madness the Sorceress was trying to create.

Ishabel just smiled at me and then turned back to take all of Weatherby's attention. My eyes turned green and I pulled on my bracelets. Still, I'd been shown, I was finished with and I was left to watch and feel as Ishabel put one knee over the back of her beastly altar and, leaning forward, began to slink her way up Weatherby's body. The witch disappeared from view, a silhouette behind the translucent drapery, but I could see what every move was doing to Weatherby. The kid's brow was sweaty, he shivered as she crawled up over him and he only had eyes for her as she came to rest leaning over him.

"Weatherby," she breathed, smiling down on him in some demented impression of desire, "are you ready to commit yourself to me forever?"

The kid was away with the fairies, eyes barely open and his response was incoherent. Wasn't going to make any difference to Ishabel anyhow and I bit my lip as the sex-witch disappeared from view again, slipping further down his body. I saw Weatherby's fingers close round the straps that held him and he shifted for his mistress, but I knew the moment she put that phallus to work because my whole body filled with it and my muscles turned to water. I managed to hold it in, echo of the ritual that it was. Weatherby had no chance. He groaned, flexing his body and closing his eyes, a look of pain-pleasure ecstasy on his features. 

I didn't dare look at Selena, but I heard her sob. Selfishly, I was glad when Ishabel then began chanting in that obscure language she'd taught Weatherby, because the sound spiralled out, filling the room with a strange, echoing strain that blocked out everything else. I steadied myself as the magic followed it, spreading out into the Stein Circle. Weatherby flexed again, gasping, but he opened his eyes and they were glowing blue. Ishabel leant up his torso, I could just see her face, her own eyes glowing red and she captured the kid's gaze as easily as she held his body. She continued to move, her silhouette telling me all I needed to know, but Weatherby shifted only slightly, attention fixed and his lips began to work in time with hers.

I recognised a closing gambit when I saw one and I tried to yell again, but the magic took my breath away. I pulled at the manacles holding me, praying for a weak link, but they held me firm.

Weatherby's head fell back against the stone again, his eyes closing, his body moving in time with his mistress and his lips repeating her spell, sealing his own doom. Her thrusts got harder and the kid's face showed more pain than pleasure, but I could feel the arousal building, his arousal. I pulled and rattled my chains, I could hear the others doing the same, but it was far too late for us to make any difference. Weatherby frowned and tensed and my heart sank as I felt his orgasm and the spell took him. 

Yet, the kid's eyes flew open, blazing an even deeper blue and the magic in and around me pulsed. A second later, jagged streaks of blue lightning sliced down through the air, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. 

The screams of the people from the orgy told me this was no normal event and one bolt hit the head of the beast on which Weatherby was lying, severing the cords on his wrists in one burning flash. The kid sat up quickly, untouched by the magic that had burnt through his bonds. Mouth still moving, eyes hard with light, he grabbed for Ishabel, and I was more than satisfied when I heard her scream. The magic stopped torturing me as Weatherby took control of it and more sparks flew.

The kid was totally focused on his Sorceress, holding her firm and pulling her back to him as he leant against the head and neck of the beast, one hand clamped on her wrist, the other going up behind his head. The revellers were all screaming now as lightning hit everywhere and they were running for the doors. I couldn't have cared less, I wanted at Ishabel, I had made a promise and I wanted to do damage. The magic, for once, agreed with me and lightning smashed into the pillar above my head. I hit the deck, dazed, as the metal ring that had held me in place bounced across the floor.

It was Ishabel's ear-splitting scream that woke me up and I scrabbled to my feet as blue flame ate its way up the fine drapery around the altar. The cloth fell away and, on my toes, I froze for a second, because the wick of the flame had not been the drapes, it was the Sorceress herself. The blue tongues engulfed her body as she struggled to get away from their creator, Weatherby. The kid's face was mainly blank, this was the power of the Stein's taking its revenge on its would-be mistress and he channelled it just like he'd channelled her magic.

The sorcery in the room might not have been tormenting me anymore, but I could still feel it building to another climax and I knew this one was gonna be deadly. Lifting the manacle chain between my hands, I dived at the altar, hooking it round the bitch's body, and I yanked her away from Weatherby. He slumped back onto the altar, eyes rolling in his head as the Sorceress flew backwards. I felt an ice-cold draft as her burning body fell past me, and then I threw myself at Weatherby. My instincts proved right as that chill came back at me rushing over my back in a blast of light and magic.

"Mort!" Henry Wallace yelled, and I found hands on my back, ripping off my shirt. 

I turned as the cloth hit the deck and fizzled in the last of the blue fire right next to where a pile of ash in the shape of a body lay. I stared at what was left of the Sorceress, even the stone phallus was nothing but dust. Selena stood next to it, face grave, body taut.

"Rot in hell," she snarled.

I'd have agreed with her, but right then I heard a gasp, not a good sound. When I turned back to him, Weatherby was curled on his side, looking at himself with horror.

"Hey, kiddo," I tried, reaching out to him, but he shied away.

"No, no," he moaned, tears welling up in his eyes, "I can't, no, I should be dead."

That despair tore my heart to pieces and I grabbed the kid, dragging him into my arms. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, because he sobbed, a gut-wrenching sound and he shuddered in my hold, cringing away from me.

"I can't be like this," Weatherby wailed, "a thing, a tool. I can still feel it in me. I should be dead. It should be over."

I could do nothing but wrap the kid in my arms. I had no words for the sheer despair he had for being alive and I felt five years of self-control breaking down. Selena pushed into me, grabbing for her brother, and I let the chick in. I loosened my hold as she took him into her arms and he didn't fight her like he fought me, so I backed off, staggering away from the weight of the world. 

I turned round and looked at the empty room, and, on the wall behind me, I saw a large, blackened hole. A little light from the room made it in through the jagged opening and I saw paper, piles of the stuff: Wolfgang Stein's study and I hated the place that had told Weatherby about the Sorceress. I glanced at Henry Wallace and Evelyn then, both looked shell-shocked as we stood alone in the dungeon, all the Sorceress' minions gone. It wasn't over, not yet, we'd won a battle, the witch was dead, but the quiet behind me told me there was a fight left yet.

~*~

The Castle was quiet, too quiet after the mess down in the dungeon. All Ishabel's hangers on had cut and run and Heinrich, who we'd released from his cell, had taken charge of the staff in the castle. Selena had taken control of Weatherby, seeing off all comers, and had put him to bed. The kid had gone from distraught to very quiet, which worried me even more than the hysterics and left me feeling helpless. The plan had worked, the power of the Steins had destroyed the Sorceress, but Evelyn had explained what had driven Weatherby to horror, that he was still a wand, the binding had not gone with Ishabel's death.

If I could have gone back in time and throttled the wizard that had made the Bes Phallus, I would have done it, but ifs wouldn't make Weatherby right. Selena had shut the rest of us out as she tried to comfort her brother. I didn't rate the chick's chances. I found myself heading back down to the dungeon. I was no brain, but there had to be something in Wolfgang Stein's study to save the kid from the life he had waiting. When I got there, I had company. 

Evelyn was leaning over a desk, head in a bunch of dusty old books, but I was glad the chick was there, because it would make my job a whole lot easier. The way her eyes were scanning the pages fast told me she was on to something.

"You got a cure for the kid?" I asked, walking into the room and avoiding the shelves spewing paper.

Evelyn looked up at me like she'd been shot. I came to a halt. She settled back onto her heels and grimaced at me. I was glad the girl was showing emotion, but her worry didn't make me feel any better.

"Not a cure," she replied eventually, words slow and unsure.

"Show me."

Evelyn spun the book round for me and I took a look: a whole heap of squiggles that meant less than nothing to me, but there were pictures. I didn't need a translation: three figures in the first picture, two joes and a broad and let's just say they weren't taking tea. I glanced back up at Evelyn and she was biting her lip. Nerves I can handle. 

"So, what does this mean?" I prompted.

"Turns out, the Bes Phallus was not always a tool of subjugation," Evelyn began slowly and when she paused, I nodded for her to continue, the chick was working up to something. "The wand of Bes was a favoured position in the temple worshipping him. Always a man, he carried the power of the god through ceremonies conducted with the High Priestess using the Bes Phallus. The power would then be shared with the rest of the priests and priestesses in the temple," she paused again and the kid's cheeks coloured, "through sex."

"How does that help Weatherby?" There was nothing for it but to be straight, we'd both seen enough that night to cut the crap.

"The power in him is unstable," Evelyn explained and waved at another couple of books that were all meaningless squiggles to me. "He expected destroying the Sorceress and the phallus to destroy him too, but instead, I believe that power and the strength of the Stein circle is in him, he has become more than Ishabel's wand. I think that he requires grounding, to share that power so that it can stabilise and this is the kind of sharing that can do that."

She tapped the book.

"The wand is the guy in the middle," I concluded, looking at the three naked bodies pressed together in the Egyptian drawing. "It needs two?"

Evelyn nodded, biting her lip again and I knew well enough what she was asking. 

"We do this and the kid is free of his addiction?"

Evelyn shook her head, playing with her braid nervously.

"We do this and Weatherby will have control of his addiction." 

I didn't like the sound of that and my face had to have shown it, because Evelyn grabbed my hand.

"Right now, Weatherby is vulnerable," she looked right up into my eyes and the chick had picked a real good time to get in touch with her feelings. "He is, as he said, a tool, seen as an object by some. He can be used by anyone with enough power to control him. A triumvirate will prevent that from being possible, his power will already be directed."

Big words sometimes passed me by, but I knew what 'triumvirate' meant and it was the first clue that this was for more than just one night. Evelyn clutched my hand tight as a vice, making sure I was looking right at her as the news sunk in.

"What have the last five years been for if we fail him now?" she pushed.

"Will you do it?" came from off by the hole where the secret door had been and we both turned to see Selena standing there, shadowed by Henry Wallace.

The girl had been crying, but there was hope in her eyes that cut right through me as she walked over to us.

"My brother is lying upstairs, staring at the wall. He won't even talk to me," she told us, taking the hands we had clasped in both her own. "He's sacrificed so much. He was always such a sweet soul, innocent even, despite what the Nazis did to him. I'm scared that's all gone."

Selena's lower lip trembled and I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close.

"We'll save him, little sister," I promised.

"Don't just save his life," she whispered, "please, I know what you both feel for him, please, save his soul."

Evelyn and I shared a look: our course was set. 

"We will," Evelyn agreed and Selena stood back, wiping her eyes.

"Thank you," she murmured, a half smile forced through her tears.

"No time like the present," I took the god by the horn and waved my partner in crime towards the exit.

The chick strode off, but as I moved to follow her and walked past him, Henry Wallace grabbed my arm.

"Mort," he whispered, "don't hold back, please, Weatherby needs to know what's in here," he put his hand to my chest. "Tell him."

The kid surprised me with the touchy-feely advice and I glared at him. Still, he persisted, owlish eyes looking right at me. I'm an ex-marine, I speak with bullets and my fists, I leave poetry to dames, but Henry Wallace had a stubborn streak a mile wide. In the end, I nodded to the kid anyway to make him feel better, at least that's what I told myself. Then I marched off after Evelyn.

~*~

The walk up to the bedrooms was one of the longest of my life. I've been in some hellish situations: waiting for Nazi monsters to tear me limb from limb; taking down a vampire, and in all of them, I never flinched once. As I walked towards Weatherby's room, though, my stomach tied in knots. I'm a big boy, my sex life has been adventurous, but the kid in the room at the end of the hall was more than just my friend. I followed when Evelyn opened the door, keeping a pace behind her. This was her show, I was just the chorus.

Weatherby was lying in the middle of a huge four poster bed, curled on his side, profile blank, eyes staring at the wall opposite. Evelyn sat down on the side he was facing. I took the other and watched the chick do her stuff.

"Weatherby," she spoke gently, putting out a hand to rest on his shoulder.

He didn't move, didn't even blink.

"Weatherby, we have been researching the Bes Sharing Ritual," Evelyn tried again and the play worked, because the kid turned his head and looked at her, a flicker of something crossing his face.

The chick smiled at him as he blinked at her. Then he glanced at me and the unsure blue gaze made my stomach do somersaults. Still, Henry Wallace's advice had hit home whether I liked it or not, so I told him quickly, "We wanna help, kiddo."

Weatherby sat up, shock, well I hoped it was shock, making him stiff and awkward.

"I couldn't possibly ask you both," he began, words coming out in a mumbled, overly-polite rush as his eyes fixed on the blanket.

"We ain't asking," I threw back, harder than I intended and I saw the kid crack.

That shut me up: see, I told you I was no good with talking. I left it to Evelyn as she reached for both Weatherby's shoulders, and, holding him as he tried to turn away, told him, "You don't have to ask, Weatherby, I love you."

Not the right thing to say either: the kid's face went from anxious to plain tormented then and he gasped in some air. He couldn't look either of us in the eye, attention dancing across the blanket and the floor.

"How can you even look at me after what I have become?" he whispered, turning away and starting to lie back down.

The self-disgust in the kid pushed all my buttons at once. I'd seen men fall apart. I'd seen ordinary joes who hated themselves for something in their past, but this one did not deserve that. I grabbed him, yanking him towards me and I held him fast when he shifted weakly.

"Look at me, kiddo," I ordered, anger making me cold, but I had to hold it in if I was to say what I needed to say.

I waited. Weatherby stared at the blanket between us. It was a longer time than waiting for the enemy to come over the hill before a fire fight. My patience was on the edge of blowing when, slowly, the kid looked up at me with those doleful eyes. I fixed him with all the authority I had and then I opened my mouth.

"Weatherby Ignatius Stein, you did what you had to. That bitch is dead, she can't hurt anyone ever again and that is all down to you. You saved us and you saved those joes who'd have come after us. She killed hundreds of thousands over the centuries and you stopped her."

I thought I started well, but eloquence is not my strong point, and my pep talk didn't seem to be going in, because the kid just stared at me, broken.

"You've seen too much crap, kiddo," my voice cracked as I got closer to what I had to say. "We. I. You mean the world to me, Weatherby. I don't give a rat's ass what you had to do to kill that bitch. I got you back with me and I ain't letting you go. Now it's my," I glanced at Evelyn, who was sitting there, jaw slack, and then back at the kid, "our turn to help you, and we want to do it. For chrissake, don't say no."

The kid was more damaged than a blown torpedo, but I had all the pieces in my hands. I'd never said it to anyone else in my life and I don't expect to say it again, but Henry Wallace had been right, I needed to say it then.

"I love you, too, kiddo."

I felt my face heat up as soon as I'd said it, not my scene at all and I let Weatherby go as my embarrassment got the better of me. The kid just kept on staring and, for a while there, I thought I'd lost him for good. I looked away. When fingers slipped into the hand that I'd dropped to my side, a rush of shock and relief made me clamp down on them. The kid was gazing at Evelyn when I looked back at him, his profile unsure, but it gave me hope. The girl was holding his other hand twice as tight as me and we both felt him begin to shake. Didn't take more than a glance between us and we both wrapped Weatherby in our arms.

Anything more than a manly slap on the back is way beyond my repertoire and I was out of my depth, but the mess of arms felt right and I absorbed the kid's shivers into my body. My long arms and large frame meant I could get my hold around both Evelyn and Weatherby and I kept them close. I have no idea how long we stuck like that, but I felt the tension drain out of all of us until we were just leaning on each other. 

I felt better then than I had in five years and the warmth in my chest spread out through my body. First I knew it was not all me was when Weatherby shifted against me and murmured under his breath. I don't think the kid meant to disturb us, he just couldn't hold it in anymore and I sat back to check on him. His head was resting on Evelyn's shoulder, eyes half closed, but his eyes were glowing the same deep blue that had destroyed the Sorceress. The nice feeling in my bones shifted as he blinked and murmured again, a frown crossing his face.

"Let it out, kiddo," I encouraged, ruffling the raven black mop of hair that made him look extra pale.

Weatherby moaned more definitely then and I let out a huff of my own as pleasure danced up and down my spine and settled in my cock. It was the same kind of power the Sorceress had used on me, but now it was not used to dominate. Evelyn sighed too, one of those breathy little sounds that gets guys all excited. Those hooded eyes looked across at me and I knew desire when I saw it. Whatever was starting, it was for better or worse and I leaned back in, trapping Evelyn between my body and Weatherby's and I kissed him. 

My head exploded with seriously kick-ass lust as soon as my lips touched the kid's and it ran through me, grabbing hold of every repressed desire I'd been holding in since I'd re-met Weatherby in New York six years ago. My torch burned brightly and I surrendered to it like Gerry on VE Day, pushing against the embrace and sending us all down onto the bed. The dam had burst and kid kissed me back enthusiastically. He knew what to do with his tongue and his fingers grabbed my hair, pulling me down and crushing Evelyn between us. The chick wasn't complaining though, she grabbed my arse with one hand, encouraging me further into the embrace on top of her and I felt her rut against Weatherby. He groaned into our kiss and his magic popped a few more of my brain cells.

From a slow start, we heated up pretty quickly, Evelyn steeling Weatherby from me for a while and her ass rubbing up against my dick until I could have flipped her over and taken her there and then. Only the fact we still had our clothes on stopped me, but I did let her up so she could turn on her back to lie next to Weatherby and then, one hand slipping under the sheet down to the kid's nether regions, she pulled me down with the other, kissing me soundly as Weatherby groaned long and loud and reared up against me.

My pants were far too tight. When I'd satisfied Evelyn until we had to come up for air, I knelt up and began pulling off the shirt I had borrowed from one of the staff. Both kids reached to help, a look of hunger on their faces that would have been scary if I hadn't trusted them, and I found myself flipped onto my back as soon as my shirt was clear of it. Weatherby started nipping and licking my chest as soon as I was down, while Evelyn went for my pants. If I'd pictured anything at all, it was not me being the first to get naked, but I wasn't objecting as my boots, pants and shreddies all hit the floor. In fact, my cock was very glad of the liberation.

Evelyn draped herself over Weatherby's back, managing to look sexy as hell even fully clothed and with her hair in librarian braids. She ran me up and down with her dark eyes as Weatherby worked his way down my torso and I knew she was as hungry for it as I was when the kid took hold of my dick and sank his hot, wet mouth round it. I was so turned on, I'd have come there and then, but Weatherby's magic took charge and my orgasm scattered through me, unfinished and torturously erotic. Evelyn's eyes closed and she bit Weatherby's shoulder as the magic shared the sensations between the three of us, but the kid himself was far too focused on my lollipop to even flinch.

I closed my eyes and reared and writhed against every lick of tongue and catch of teeth, just as Weatherby wanted me to and I was so into the mind-blowing tease that I had no idea what Evelyn was up to. First I knew of it was when Weatherby almost choked around me and then went limp for a moment. I looked down my body which he was kneeling over and the reason made me swell even more. Evelyn had pulled down Weatherby's pyjama bottoms and her head and hands were under his body and between his legs. The kid's blissed-out expression was so hot, I didn't even mind when he let me go, his whole body flexing as Evelyn made him sing. Instead, I took a moment to recover motor control, enjoying the view, and then I sat up, grabbing for Weatherby's pyjama shirt. I pulled it off over his head and then, between us, Evelyn and I turned our prize onto his back. The pyjama pants went the same way as my clothing then and I kissed and stroked the kid while Evelyn got my revenge for the prick-torture he'd give to me.

The chick might have looked like she belonged in a library, but she fired us both up like she worked in a brothel. Didn't take me long to decide she had far too many clothes on. Weatherby seemed glad of the relief from her wicked mouth when I encouraged him to pull her up his body for another kiss and, at the same time, I slid down the bed. My dick throbbed hard as I thought about what I was about to do. I lifted Evelyn's hips until she was on her knees, head down kissing Weatherby, and then, slowly, I rolled her skirt up over her thighs. She murmured and shivered as I pushed the cloth up over her back to reveal her panties, sweet little cotton pink ones, and I liked my lips. Both kids glanced back at me when I paused, fingers on the rose-bud trim. I took the delicate cloth in both my hands and then I ripped it apart. Evelyn shivered as her panties split at the side seams and I threw them away, leaving her exposed, her legs spread either side of Weatherby's thighs.

Unsurprisingly, Evelyn was already wet, and I ran my tongue up over her swollen lips. She moaned, burying her head in Weatherby's shoulder, and flexed her hips. Weatherby was all eyes, his tongue practically hanging out as I repeated my action, tasting the girl with my mouth and my body as the magic pulsed through all of us. Evelyn wriggled and sighed and panted, her responses and my experience of the girl telling me this was new. With a more experienced partner, I would have used my fingers as well, but I knew what Evelyn was offering, and that was for Weatherby. I had control now, and, gently, I urged her to kneel up. I pressed against the small of her back, keeping the skirt up at the back and giving myself a pretty nice sensation of cloth on dick and I lifted the skirt at the front.

Evelyn leant her head back again my chest, displaying her arousal to Weatherby and the kid couldn't take his eyes off her. This wasn't just lust, I could see his desire and his love in that shining stare, as I encouraged her to shimmy forward and I could feel her wants as well. Weatherby looked up at me and I smiled at the nerves that had suddenly come to his face. I didn't really want to think about it, but this was probably the kid's first time properly with a woman as well, and I wanted to make this moment special for the two of them. When the kid's eyes dropped to his own erection, lying thick and dark up his stomach, I knew what he was asking. Gently, I reached down and took his dick in my hand. He shuddered under my control and my own cock throbbed. Carefully, I guided Evelyn over him and urged her to sink down.

Evelyn mewed and tensed. I kissed her neck.

"Take your time, relax," I reassured.

It took a few tries, but then Evelyn stretched up against me, panted and then swore. Weatherby whined as well, I could feel him trying to hold still and I released him as Evelyn sank down around him. The look of shocked bliss on Weatherby's face and the way Evelyn's head flopped forward told me they were both away with the fairies and I was more than happy to leave them there as long as they wanted. However, Evelyn, holding herself still against me, then asked, "Please take my clothes off."

I kissed her neck again and then went to work unbuttoning the little red vest she was wearing. That went quickly, her shoes and ankle socks followed, the small movements she made as I undressed her making both her and Weatherby moan. I was so turned on my hands were shaking as I moved my attention to Evelyn's simple white shirt. I put my arms around her and took each button one at a time, pulling the blouse slowly out of the skirt's waistband and revealing her tanned, smooth shoulders and pale pink bra that matched her ruined panties. She shrugged the shirt off down between us and I undid her skirt, pulling it quickly off over her head. That left just the bra and Evelyn was shivering with anticipation. I had never thought stripping could be so erotic, but, as our own desires grew, I could feel the magic swirling around in all of us, tightening its hold and drawing us in to its pleasure.

Weatherby looked like he was holding on with all he had as, with one hand I unclipped the bra at the back and then, peeled it off, revealing small, but pert breasts. I stroked a palm over one prominent nipple and Evelyn leant back against me, moving around Weatherby and purring her delight. The kid couldn't hold himself still any more, and he sat up, reaching for Evelyn. I let the girl go, sitting back on my heels, content to watch, as Weatherby wrapped her in his arms, burying his face in her chest. Yet, they didn't let their desires take them. I could feel the tension in my own chest, the need for fulfilment, but they held close and still once more, wrapped in each other, but not moving. 

"Mort, I need you," Weatherby eventually murmured, not looking up and for one horrible moment traces of the old self-disgust seeping into his tone.

"We need you, Mort," Evelyn quickly corrected, kissing Weatherby's crown and then lifting his chin so he was looking at her.

Boy and man looked back at her and then they both looked over to me and I smiled my best, confident smile.

"I'm right here," I replied and crawled up the bed until I was half sitting, half lying over the pillows. "Kneel in front of me, back to me."

Reluctantly, the kids parted and sacrificed a little lust for mechanics. When Weatherby was astride my hips, it then occurred to me we were missing supplies. I paused. I don't know how he knew what I was thinking, but the kid then told me flatly, "The binding magic means I do not require lubrication."

I sat up quickly then and wrapped my arms around Weatherby. I didn't want this whole thing to go south.

"She's gone," I reminded him, holding him close. "It's just the three of us now. We love you."

He sagged against me, drawing in a staggered breath, and I knew the only way to chase away the ghosts was to show him. I loosened my hold a little and changed position, kneeling up behind him. I kissed him back as I leant him forward and then I pushed in. It had been a long time since I'd been with a guy and I took it slow, pleasure centres popping as I felt his body surrender to me and I slid inside. Something slid home, something beyond the physical and I felt the magic tighten around me again as I came to a halt, hilt deep into Weatherby. He murmured, leaning up against me again, shivering, and I wrapped him tight once more.

Evelyn was kneeling only inches away, eyes wide, body poised and I knelt back over my heels, taking Weatherby with me. His cock stood out from his body and we both looked down at it. The girl shifted forward and lifted herself up. I saw her eyes flutter closed as she seated herself on that thick cock and I surprised myself when I realised I wanted some of that for myself sometime soon, but then Weatherby moaned and all my attention sunk to my dick as he shifted helplessly. The magic moved as well then and the temperature went through the roof. I withdrew a little and then pushed back into him, he rocked forward into Evelyn and the magic pulsed with something I can only liken to delight. That was all we needed and we began to move more definitely.

We didn't really get the hang of any rhythm, it was more act and react between bursts of mind-altering magic, but it didn't matter, because whatever the binding magic had once been, it had only one purpose now and that was to take us all right up as far as we could go, together. I thrust into Weatherby's willing body, my own pleasure building, but I could also feel his and Evelyn's growing right beside mine. Five years of searching, of pain, of oppression, none of it mattered in those few moments and I yelled the last of my rage as I hit the white-hot wall.

I have no idea if what happened next was in my head, or my body, or both, but I know it was magic. I came, hard, and I recognised the rush, but Weatherby's magic tangled with it, pushing through me, knocking the world on its ass and I felt something I had never known was missing. In that moment I felt want, I felt desire, I felt love and it was all for the two people in my arms. It was mind-blowing and terrifying and totally awesome.

I came back to myself slumped on the bed, legs bent painfully under me, Weatherby halfway down my legs and lying up over my stomach, completely out cold and Evelyn draped over us both. Her head was hanging down to the side at an uncomfortable angle, but the chick had the cutest little smile on her lips. Still, I wanted to help her, and so I reached to move her before she got a crick. She murmured and shifted as soon as I touched her, eye's flickering open and I froze, because, I was looking into the same iridescent blue that had shone in Weatherby's eyes. She slowly pushed herself up, away from Weatherby, who showed no signs of coming round and, rubbing her neck, asked me, "What's the matter?"

"Your eyes," I replied.

"Yours too," she shrugged and I remembered I was dealing with an academic: they had different attitudes to the strange.

"Doesn't bother you then?" I checked, just to be sure.

"Looks kind of sexy," Evelyn replied, grinning, and she crawled up the bed until she was lying beside me and my unconscious burden.

Normally, I have self-control, I wouldn't have survived without it, but those lips were just too delicious to resist. I leant over and kissed. I felt the magic jump as our lips met and that little jolt brought Rip Van Winkle round. Weatherby groaned, shifting on top of me that sent a whole lot of messages to my sensitised dick I did not need right then and I was the one moaning when he slowly sat up. He slipped down between my legs, turning in his seat and blinking back at me and Evelyn.

"I feel strange," he managed, voice small and confused, like he didn't remember what had just happened.

I'd seen addicts who'd lost time thanks to their drugs blowing brain cells. I hoped it wasn't that, but I didn't know what was going on. Evelyn proved to be a shrewder chick than I'd given her credit for, though.

"Light the candle, Weatherby," she told him, waving to one on the bedside table.

Instantly, a flame flickered into life and the kid stared at it, mouth open. Evelyn, though, clapped her hands and then threw her arms around Weatherby.

"The magic is yours now," she revealed, giving him the most chaste hug I have ever seen from two naked people.

The kid still looked kind of shell shocked, but Evelyn's joy wasn't waiting for him to catch up. The embrace went from sisterly to x-rated in a second as the chick climbed into Weatherby's lap and planted kisses all over his face and neck. The glow in the kid's eyes had been low, but with female encouragement, it grew and at least his baser thoughts caught up with what was going on. I snatched my leg out of the way just as the couple flopped backwards across the bed and I smiled, satisfied by a job well done as their bodies entwined.

The kids were so involved in each other, they didn't notice when I climbed off the bed and walked over to the window. I stretched and looked out at the dawn slowly lighting the sky over the trees. It had been one hell of a night, the early part of which I wanted to forget had ever happened and the rest that I'd repeat in a heartbeat. I didn't realise how literal that thought was until hands came running round either side of my waist, stroking my abs insistently. I turned my head to find Weatherby standing beside me, smiling, eyes aglow and nails gliding up my chest. However, he did not own the other hand that slipped downwards and I gasped as purposeful fingers wrapped themselves around me cock.

"Come back to bed," Weatherby urged as Evelyn provided the most direct enticement. "We haven't finished yet and we need you."

I may not have been as young as my lovers, but the magic didn't seem to notice. The lovely strokes encouraged my dick to begin filling out again and both the kids were looking down at my progress, eyes ablaze with sorcery. The part of me that knew what my limits had been wondered if I was going to survive the night, but the rest of me put my hand in Weatherby's and went willingly back to bed.

~*~

The smell of coffee brought me out of an exhausted sleep. I did come round with a smile on my face, though, well, until I tried to move and then my body reminded me that I'm no spring chicken. I groaned and rolled over, away from the shoulder next to my face that I already, kinda knew, was Weatherby's. That's when I found a cup under my nose and I realised Evelyn, who I knew was on the other side of Weatherby, could not be holding it and I looked down the arm to the person holding it. Selena smiled at me.

"We thought you might be needing this," she offered sweetly and persisted in her offering.

Not quite sure how to deal with Selena sitting politely on the side of the bed I was sharing with my two lovers, I sat up, took the coffee and murmured a thank you, glancing awkwardly at Henry Wallace, who was holding a breakfast tray and standing behind Selena.

"How are you feeling?" Selena asked, folding her hands in her lap and trying to look earnest.

Now that, I had no answer to, since I wasn't going to answer 'horny' - seems Weatherby's influence was not going to go away any time soon, and I was kinda glad about that. I glanced down at the kid himself, and he opened his eyes, saving me from trying to think of anything. Weatherby sat bolt upright, grabbed the sheet up round his chin and gasped, "Selena!"

"Oh Weatherby, darling," she replied, patting his knee, "I am an anthropologist, you know, I have seen naked bodies before."

That didn't seem to help at all and the kid was an attractive shade of pink when I passed him the coffee I hadn't yet touched. He took it, but then just sat very still, cup in one hand, blanket in the other. Well, at least his eyes weren't glowing anymore, so I assumed mine weren't either, even if I could feel the magic running under my skin. Normality seemed to be what Selena needed, though and she wasn't about to leave any time soon.

"Breakfast," Henry Wallace announced loudly when brother and sister just kept staring at each other, and put the large tray on the end of the bed.

Evelyn responded to that and sat up, stretched and then opened her eyes. You could have knocked Henry Wallace over with a feather and the kid's glasses were just about steaming up. It was Weatherby who responded, he dropped the sheet in front of him and lifted it up in front of Evelyn, which was a good thing, because it meant Henry Wallace could breathe again. Henry Wallace then opened his mouth to say something, but shut it again, doing far better than the shade of light pink Weatherby had achieved. 

"Could I have that robe, please?" Evelyn asked, straightening her shoulders and waving at a chair where one such item had been laid out. 

Henry Wallace crossed the room in two strides, grabbed the robe and then crossed back in one, holding the robe out in one hand while facing the other way. 

"Thank you," she told him and then slipped the silk round her shoulders.

"Well done, kid," I praised as Henry Wallace sagged and walked back round to the end of the bed.

"You really are going to have to learn some more epithets, Morton, or you are going to start getting the two of us mixed up," Weatherby chided with just a ghost of the old aristo-disdain I had come to know and love.

He then passed the cup of coffee to Evelyn as if we were all sitting politely at the breakfast table.

"You're kiddo, he's kid, no confusion," I quipped back and grinned at the withering look I was given.

I resisted the urge to ruffle the kid's hair, but it was close - I was going to have to get a handle on these new instincts, or ruin my tough-guy rep. 

"Anyone want some food?" Henry Wallace stepped in before either my new touchy-feely side got the better of me, or Weatherby offered another opinion, and my stomach growled loudly in agreement.

"We do need to eat, we have expended a lot of energy," Evelyn nodded and then realised what she had said; seems crimson was the colour of the day. "Magically, I mean, especially Weatherby."

"Definitely," Selena took over, ignoring the innuendo in the room and going into full big-sister mode again.

The large breakfast tray was laden with everything for a German breakfast, cheese, meat, preserves and several types of bread from white to dark pumpernickel. Selena grabbed a plate and heaped it with three rolls, half a dozen slices of meat, another several of cheese, a large spoonful of some dark, berry preserve and then passed it all to Weatherby. Evelyn snorted a laugh at the huge amount of food, Weatherby just looked at it. The kid had broadened out since his lanky teenage years, but there was enough food on the plate to feed two of him. He looked like he was still feeling too awkward to eat anyhow, so I decided to help.

"If you're just gonna stare at it," I said and reached for one of the rolls.

I was not expecting a stinging slap that came down on the back of my hand and I complained, dropping the roll as Selena glared at me. That would have been it, but then the thing suddenly leapt off the plate, back into my hand. I felt the jolt of magic and looked instantly at Weatherby. The kid was looking at my hand and his mouth was curling at the corner. That expression became a full smile when he saw me checking him out.

"It wasn't me," he told me simply and my average-joe brain caught up with what he was saying.

"You must be hungry," Evelyn laughed, leaning against Weatherby and sipping her coffee as I stared at my hand and the roll sitting in it.

"You're the magic one," I objected. I did guns, not jumping rolls.

"Do not look so concerned, Mort," Weatherby put his hand on mine. "I believe you merely borrowed a little energy from our gestalt."

"Come again?" 

"We are a whole greater than the sum of its parts," Evelyn explained.

"I know what a gestalt is." I might have sounded a little snappy. "It was the borrow bit."

Weatherby took Evelyn's hand as well then, seems we were all touchy-feely that morning.

"We will have to investigate further, but, in close proximity, we clearly shared energy last night and it appears that phenomenon is continuing," the kid explained as calm as a cucumber, pretty happy if I was any judge.

"I wonder how far apart we can be for it to work?" Evelyn sounded excited too.

Coffee cup in one hand and Weatherby in the other did not stop the chick from then focusing on the plate of breakfast. My stomach lurched and the whole plate slid down Weatherby's lap. Selena watched with slightly open-mouthed interest, giving a little clap when the plate then slid back again. Henry Wallace also observed with a smile on his face. Me, I was hungry and I'd had enough of magic for at least a few hours as my stomach ruled my head.

"Scientists! Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?" I complained and then stuffed the roll into my mouth.

~*~

Half an hour later, we'd managed to eat breakfast without the kids throwing too much of it around the room. Turns out, everyone was as hungry as I was and we cleared the tray and drained the coffee pot. We'd talked as we ate, but not about much, seems big things could wait as we just enjoyed each other's company. All of us, back together again. Weatherby brought our feast to an end by falling asleep on my shoulder. Don't think he'd have stirred if we'd carried on, the kid still looked pale and tired: there was a long way to go, but I was happy to have him comfortable enough to drift off against me.

Selena, though, looked like she might cry as she watched her baby brother let go. 

"How is he?" she finally asked what had been sitting behind her eyes all through breakfast and she glanced from me to Evelyn, the ghosts of last night all over her face.

"Coping," I told her honestly, because that was as good as it was gonna get for a while, triumvirate or not, the kid had been abused.

"He's coming back to us," Evelyn added, reaching out and squeezing Selena's hand, "but it's going to take time."

Selena nodded, the tears beginning to flow silently down her cheeks.

"We didn't sleep," Henry Wallace admitted, walking round and putting a hand on Selena's shoulder. "Are you both alright?"

"Never better," I replied for myself and Evelyn nodded.

"The magic has worked mostly the way we expected," Evelyn explained. "Weatherby should no longer be in danger from himself, or others, the magic has stabilised and is his own."

"Thank you, thank you so much for what you have done," Selena sounded like she didn't quite believe.

"Our pleasure, little sister," I answered and realised, I meant that literally.

~*~

The bus was packed, the kids were ready to leave the whole sorry Sorceress affair behind us, but Weatherby had disappeared. The kid had wandered off alone a lot during the couple of days we'd spent at Castle Stein recuperating, so I wasn't too worried, but we had a plane to catch in four hours. We'd each split up to look for him, but, up in the bedroom hallways, I didn't expect to find the kid in Ishabel's old suite. He'd avoided this place like the plague, too many bad memories, I figured, but I found him standing at the she-devil's desk. He did at least look a bit like the old Weatherby Stein I remembered, taller, broader, but wearing one of his dad's Victorian jackets and vest, that he fitted now, and a pair of round spectacles on his nose. However, the frown on his face was deeper, the protective anger of his youth all used up too soon as he looked down at a small book in his hands.

"What you got there, kiddo?" I asked from the doorway, the place giving me the creeps.

"It took me a while to gather up the courage to come in here," the kid sighed, but he smiled, his shoulders relaxing as he held out the book in his hand and added, "but not so scary after all, and I found what I wanted."

I walked over and took the book, small, red-leather, could have been a date book, but, inside, its pages were covered with numbers.

"I was her constant companion," Weatherby told me, a tremor in his voice that I knew was gonna take a long time to go away, if ever, "and I watched, I listened. This is her bank book, a list of numbered accounts all over the world. And this," he picked up a larger ledger, "contains household accounts for four dozen properties. She owned many places, appropriated, no doubt from her victims, like this one."

He looked around the room.

"Well, now it's all yours," I decided, handing the book back to Weatherby, it was small enough payment for the hell she'd put him through.

Still, I can't say I was surprised when the kid shook his head.

"No, we shall take enough for maybe a decent suite of consulting offices in New York and to put Henry Wallace through school, he deserves that."

"And you too," I suggested hopefully, but was given another shake of the head.

"I rather think I would not fit in to that world," the kid replied, a sad smile on his face. "No, I will take my father's study contents with me and I will return to our work, Mort, and we shall distribute this wealth to those who need it. Ishabel left many families without fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers: they must be first on our list if we can locate them. Then, there are many worthy charities who would benefit from Ishabel's millions."

"Leave it all behind," I concluded and patted him on the shoulder.

"I am somewhat looking forward to it," Weatherby agreed, frowning, but pushed whatever thought was in his head aside as he smiled at me and told me, "I have missed our adventures, Morton."

"You got competition now, kiddo," I joked. "Between them, Evelyn and Henry Wallace could give you a run for your money."

"Evelyn has a far wider breadth of knowledge than I," the kid replied self-deprecatingly. "And it is good to know that Henry Wallace has kept up with his studies. I had worried he would fall behind without my encouragement."

"Oh, he still had you as encouragement," I quipped before I'd realised what my big mouth had said.

The calm veneer Weatherby had put back in place slipped as he blinked at me, so I barrelled on, "So, what about the Castle?"

Weatherby looked around and then walked to the window that overlooked the courtyard.

"I do have Ishabel to thank that Castle Stein is fully restored and it will remain in our family," Weatherby told me. Still, I heard the but coming, "but I will not be returning here. One day, maybe mine, or Selena's descendants may wish to return here, but, my parents haunt these walls for me and, I think, for her."

The kid didn't mention the second nightmare he'd lived through in his family home and, maybe his parents' murders were genuinely that much worse for him than slavery to the Sorceress, but I wasn't about to try and find out.

"Come on, kiddo, we're leaving," I finished and waited as he gathered up the papers.

We walked out of the castle side by side, Stein and Candle, together again. Still, Evelyn was standing by the bus as we walked into the courtyard and she held out her hand to Weatherby. He took it and I watched them climb into the bus together. The idea of a three-way affair still felt strange. The kids had both tried to show me book after book where triumvirates were some mystical thing, but I'm just a gumshoe with a side order of weird and I didn't feel like a 'patriarchal power figure', whatever the hell that was. I was stuck with it, though, and wild horses couldn't have made me change it. 

I watched Henry Wallace assist Selena onto the bus and then climbed into the driver's seat.

"Y'know, kids," I bellowed as I gunned up the engine, "how does Stein, Candle and Dearborn Detective Agency sound?"

I heard the chick gasp and Weatherby laugh and smiled to myself as I checked the hug I saw in my rear view mirror.

"And Baum!" Henry Wallace objected.

"Give it time, kid, give it time," I promised and drove out of Castle Stein for the last time, no looking back.


End file.
